SOURCE: Eder, Richard. “Where the Chariots were Engulfed: Near-misses in the Vietnam War.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (16 October 1994): 3, 10.

In the following review, Eder compliments Wolff's prose in In Pharaoh's Army, comparing it to other prominent literature about the Vietnam War.

Imagine the button; the notorious and apocryphal button—it is a set of keys, I believe—that was available through the Cold War, and since, for unleashing Armageddon. Would it be black plastic like a doorbell buzzer? Or brushed steel like the on-off in an expensive sound system? Might it squeak when pressed? Would it bear the faint sheen of mayonnaise from a sandwich lunch at the desk—the President touching it lightly while thinking large and lonely thoughts?

It is the button or its equivalent that Tobias Wolff considers in these 13 pieces from the Vietnam War [in In Pharaoh's Army]. He approaches its horror somewhat as...